In the decentralized American system, oversight should flow from the bottom up. We generally don’t want officials in far-off Washington, D.C. overseeing the goings-on in cities. Local prosecutors should root out local corruption. The state is next line – and the feds should get involved as a last resort. The idea is the government closest to the people generally is most responsive to the people’s needs.
Yet that whole oversight process is working backwards in Anaheim, as the feds led a corruption investigation, followed by intervention from the California attorney general. Now, 1 ½ years after the resignation of Mayor Harry Sidhu following the filing of an FBI affidavit, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has confirmed an investigation into City Hall corruption. Better late than never.
As a quick recap, city officials began negotiating with the Angels baseball team in 2019 over the sale to the team of the stadium and surrounding 150 acres. Some of the dubious machinations over that sale were publicized in the media – e.g., questions about seemingly under-market pricing and concerns about City Council secrecy.
In April 2022, the FBI filed its affidavit alleging Sidhu was “sharing confidential information with representatives from the (Angels) … with the expectation of receiving a sizeable contribution to his reelection campaign.” Sidhu denied any wrongdoing, but resigned in May. Last August, he pleaded guilty to federal felony charges.
The state in 2022 asked for – and a judge agreed – to halt to the stadium sale. Anaheim City Council cancelled the deal and the team agreed. In a lengthy city-sponsored report released in July, independent investigators bolstered FBI allegations of a “cabal” of insiders who had outsized control of City Hall – a problem that went well beyond Sidhu.
Subsequent elections have yielded mixed results between reformers and those representing the usual city interests, which has stymied anti-corruption reforms. There’s still a key role for the DA’s office, which under Spitzer has operated in a professional and balanced manner, to sort through the mess. But we are left with a key question: What took so long?
